


Platonic

by Shinigamibutter



Series: Tattooed Souls [3]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hyungwon is along for the ride, Minhyuk is a considerate baby, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Pre-debut, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 18:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19751140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinigamibutter/pseuds/Shinigamibutter
Summary: Minhyuk had been wanting to meet his soulmate, really for as long as he can remember. He just never expected it to turn out like this.





	Platonic

**Author's Note:**

> Before I get chewed out, I am very much a platonic soulmate believer. I can totally see this in real life, thus I wrote it that way. 
> 
> This Tattooed Souls series is all about all kinds of soulmates, even those that aren't the norm in these works. I hope you enjoy these stories anyway.

Minhyuk smiled to himself flipping through a small book of drawings, they weren’t just any drawings though, they were tattoo ideas. Generic ones, granted. That didn’t really matter to him, he wasn’t going to be getting any of those. He already knew what he wanted. He was just waiting his turn and killing time as his best friend got his own tattoo. His best friend had chosen a generic one, not too generic though. No one wanted a generic tattoo, otherwise it would be too hard to find their soulmate. At the same time not many people wanted anything too far from generic either. 

It was a bit of a catch twenty-two. One that Minhyuk and his best friend had been thinking about the whole year that led up to their eighteenth birthdays. After all whatever they decided to get would appear on their soulmate. And Minhyuk, for his part did not want to get something both he and his soulmate, if he did have one, would regret later. He’d seen it happen, well on TV shows at least. Finding one’s soulmate wasn’t all that common after all. Though he knew of exactly four pairs of soulmates around him. Not counting his parents who, while never showing him their tattoos, claimed to be such. 

The tattoo he’d decided on in the end wasn’t anything fancy or anything too simple either. It was a simple X, drawn a little more elaborately and maybe just a bit ironically since when he saw it he knew he’d think ‘X marks the spot’. And he wouldn’t exactly be wrong. Or he hoped not. There were many cases reported of wrong tattoos linking couples together. It was something of an epidemic. Where someone saw a tattoo on someone and copied it, he wasn’t going to risk it. He was putting his tattoo somewhere out of the way and not easily seen, but also easily seen enough to be found. 

A location had taken him months on end to think up, longer even than the X had taken him to perfect. But he thought he’d settled on the perfect place, just above the Achilles tendon. Which meant it would show over short socks, and possibly through long socks. While also being a place that could be easily hidden. Not that he was planning to hide his. Honestly he was hoping that the girl he’d had his eye on lately would see it and reveal she’d gotten the mark after he was done here. Granted he knew that was probably a pipe dream. He was going to smoke it until the smoke ran out.

. X . . X . . X .

The smoke had run out quickly on all the pipe dreams Minhyuk had thought to smoke about the girls around him. It had been a week, maybe three he wasn’t really counting down the days or anything, since he’d gotten his first tattoo. And so far he’d seen no one with it, even though it was summer and everyone and their brother was wearing shorts. His best friend had found their soulmate though, and they now both had small, but noticeable paw prints on their collar bones. When he looked at them, holding hands and both in cat shirts, he couldn’t help smiling. They deserved to be happy. 

Honestly, even before the tattoos he would have called them belonging together. It was just that Minhyuk hadn’t been brave enough to say anything about it. Of course things changed after the marks, things changed after a couple was born. He tried to ignore the changes though. Tried to ignore the way he was now a third wheel, the lightbulb, or whatever one wanted to call it. But, like all things that one wanted to ignore but knew better than to do so, he couldn’t. And even though he tried not to be, he was painfully aware as he watched his friendship fade. Watched as someone he cared about faded into someone he barely knew.

. X . . X . . X .

It was maybe a year, maybe less after Minhyuk had lost his best friend to the marks they’d willingly put on their bodies that he decided on a new path. A new future. One that maybe, just possibly, could lead him to his soulmate. But even if it couldn’t he was sure it would lead him to happiness, eventually. He would make sure that his hard work paid off when he entered his first company, his hopes higher than they’d ever been before. He knew he could sing, dance, and do whatever else being an idol required. Even if the road was hard. He’d walked hard roads before. This road was harder, but Minhyuk was sure he could walk it. 

And that was how he met his soulmate. And that was how everything changed. In a much different way than things had with his ex-best friend, much differently than they had when he started checking ankles, just in case. At that moment, when he saw the X, a mark of his soul on another, everything in the world that he knew turned upside down. Because his mark wasn’t on the cute girl he’d expected, it wasn’t on a girl at all. It was on Hyungwon, another male trainee he’d made friends with. And that same Hyungwon was making out with a girl. 

For Minhyuk to say he was shocked, flabbergasted, taken aback, or anything really in that moment would have been an understatement and he knew it. Instead it felt like the earth had shaken and when it stopped nothing, not even a tiny little thing was where it had been before. And he wasn’t sure what he was going to do about it. How he should react to it, if he should react to it or run. Part of him wanted to run. To ignore what he’d seen and move on. But he’d done that once, and lost someone. Someone he’d cared about, and he’d started caring about Hyungwon as a friend. 

He couldn’t do that again. He couldn’t willingly watch as someone he’d known, someone who had known him became a stranger. He couldn’t do it again. So he didn’t. Instead he was honest, without being honest. He just didn’t hide, if Hyungwon noticed he noticed, though Minhyuk wasn’t sure how the taller, younger, and equally handsome trainee wouldn’t notice. Or how someone wouldn’t point it out to him. Or maybe he knew, had known all along. Though Minhyuk wasn’t sure he could handle that. 

. X . . X . . X .

Like all things, at least in Minhyuk’s life, he was hyper aware the day that Hyungwon noticed, or pretended to notice his tattoo for the first time. They were relaxing in the of the abandoned studios, panting and sweating after a hard work through of their current routine. He’d caught Hyungwon not so subtly looking at his tattoo, maybe seven times in the last ten minutes and he’d prepared himself for the inevitable. What with their tattoos not even two feet apart, it would be hard to not notice how they were exactly the same. 

Which was what Hyungwon said. His voice a mumble and Minhyuk's thoughts scattering before the words were even finished. But he found a voice to talk anyway. He wasn’t sure it was a good thing, but the words spilled out regardless. “I know you’re not into guys, I’m not either. But even so it looks like we’re soulmates. I guess that means we were destined to be best friends, brothers, please don’t hate me. I don’t think I could handle it if you hate me. I don't think I could handle it if you even kind of rejected me.” Not even two seconds after the words settled between them Minhyuk wanted to die. 

He couldn’t believe he’d just said it all out loud, to Hyungwon’s face, when he’d not even talked to anyone about the tattoo. Though he’d been asked, by several of his friends. He wanted to save the talk for Hyungwon, he hadn’t wanted it to go like this though. And if his body weren’t frozen in mortification he was sure he would bolt. Instead he was forced to sit there as Hyungwon looked at him, just looked at him. Then something changed in the air, something broke and Minhyuk wondered if it would be his heart when Hyungwon’t lips moved. 

“It’s okay.” Hyungwon’s smile felt like a light at the end of a tunnel, relief, forgiveness, and healing. “I don’t mind that we’re soulmates, I was meaning to talk to you about it. I never wanted to a romantic soulmate. I’m happy it’s you.” For a second all Minhyuk could do was blink, and blink. Watching as Hyungwon, the slow and steady Hyungwon was the one with the upper hand while he, who thought fast and spoke faster was left behind. Because he hadn’t expected that, not really. But he was happy. Happier than he knew how to express beyond the tears on his face. 

. X . . X . . X .

Looking back on old memories Minhyuk smiled as he flipped through a tattoo magazine. His first tattoo was staring at him from his crossed legs, while his best friend and soulmate was sitting next to him. It wasn’t the same tattoo parlor as before, nor was the reason he was getting a tattoo the same but he didn’t mind. This one wouldn’t show up on anyone else, it was for him. To cover up the scars from a knee injury, and while he’d thought about not doing it, about letting it stay as it was, Hyungwon had encouraged him to not. In the same way Hyungwon had encouraged him to not let him go, to hold on.

Climbing up in the chair, his second time on a tattoo chair, Minhyuk thought about everything that Hyungwon had seen him through and how this was no different. He wondered if one day he’d be able to thank him for everything the way he knew he wanted to. If he could ever express in words the way that having Hyungwon as his soulmate, platonic and wonderful, was everything he’d truly needed to keep his life on course. Or course he knew, had been told in the same kinds of clumsy words and ways by Hyungwon as he used, that this was a two way street. And that together they were better. That together they made a whole. 

Still, Minhyuk found himself saying what he could, the needle working on the art on his knee as he held the hand that kept him steady. The hand that had held his when they switched companies, the hand that followed him and stayed with him in his tough times. The hand that had been through so many trials while holding his own, a hand he knew he’d never truly let go of. And for his efforts he got the same smile that saved him so many years ago now, and simple words that made him, them happy. “I love you too, platonically.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts appreciated but only if they are nice.


End file.
